Fellow, Biomaterials and Artificial Organs

Each IUBSE Member Society has established its own process for nomination of potential Fellows. These processes are based on the following general guidelines.

  • Candidates for Fellow status are to be nominated and evaluated by existing Fellows.
  • Candidates should have at least ten years of scientific or professional contributions to the field of biomaterials science and engineering.
  • Candidates should have at least ten years of continuous active (full) membership upon nomination, or alternatively, founding membership in the Society.
  • Candidates should have appropriate professional training (a bachelor’s degree and a professional or research degree), competence, and good standing in a discipline appropriate for biomaterials science and engineering research. Exceptions can be approved with sufficient justification.
  • Candidates should have significant contributions to the field of Biomaterials Science and Engineering documented by a continuous productivity in biomaterials research, development, education, or administration. The documents shall evidence an increasing leadership role.
  • Candidates should have a continuing record of publication in refereed journals appropriate to the candidate’s contributions to the field.
  • Member Societies shall have no more fellows than 10% of its active membership. Active Fellows are those who maintain an active membership
  • All nominations shall be kept confidential.

Explanatory Details

While the above criteria should be used as a guideline, The Chair of the Fellows Selection Committee of the Indian Society should be aware of some general trends

  • You are not expected to fill out all 10% of the available positions. In fact, it is highly recommended that you restrict this number to a percentage that will make the title of “Fellow” a prestigious one. In the US Society we have kept this number at about 4%.
  • Evaluation of scholarly achievement should be based on objective criteria. In the past, another Society had used for Fellow election a limit of about 1,800 to 2,000 life citations (as recorded in the Web of Knowledge® and as verified by careful screening that omits spurious citations of other investigators).
  • Typically, only truly refereed articles in international journals are considered.
  • Editorials, articles in trade magazines, short educational documents, etc are not considered.
  • For industrial members, a significant leadership over a long period of time is required. Typically, we award this title to Presidents, CEOs, COOs, CFOs, CTOs, Vice Presidents and (rarely) Directors of Research. We do reward those major inventors working in companies.
  • For nominations from Government Institutes, we select those who have had a long and continuous leadership in the field. Again, we do reward also major inventors.
  • Let me also make the suggestion that Indians living and working abroad should be recognized by their Societies abroad and not by the Indian Society.

Nicholas A Peppas, ScD, IOM, NAE

President IUSBSE
Fletcher S. Pratt Chair in Engineering, Chairman, Department of Biomedical Engineering
Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Chemical Engineering and Pharmacy
Director of Center on Biomaterials, Drug Delivery, Bionanotechnology and Molecular Recognition, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712-0231

Based on the above direction the following criteria was developed for SBAOI fellowships.

Fellow in Biomaterials & Artificial Organs (FBAO)

Society for Biomaterials and Artificial Organs (India)

Criteria for nominations

To commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Society for Biomaterials and Artificial Organs (India), it is proposed to introduce fellowship in line with that of IUSBSE. The proposed fellowship will be known as Fellow, Biomaterials and Artificial Organs (FBAO).

The nomination criteria for fellowship of IUSBSE (as available) are high quality research in the area of biomaterials supported by extensive quality publications and 1800-2000 citations. Considering the typical scenario in India, the following criteria is proposed.

General requirements

  • Nominees should have appropriate professional training (master’s /professional/research degree), competence and good performing research in the broader area of ‘biomaterials science’ with 10 or more years of active membership in the society and notable contributions to the development of the society and its journals TRENDS
  • Nominees should have made significant contributions to Biomaterials Science documented by sustained efforts in biomaterials research, development, education, or administration.
  • Self nomination for the beginning and later new Fellows to be nominated and evaluated by existing Fellows

Specific requirements

  • Nominees should have a continuing record of publication in refereed journals appropriate to the candidate’s contributions to the field.
  • Nominees should have over 500 citations and h-factor over 10. The citations are expected from work carried out in India.

OR

  • Nominees should have remarkable records in developing indigenous technologies comparable to the above stated academic contributions and their successful commercialization. The equivalency of the Efforts in developing and commercializing a product Vs Scientific achievement with over 500 citations will be determined by the committee and the committee’s decision will be final

OR

  • Nominees should have made significant contributions towards the growth of medical devices by setting up industrial bases in this country with continuing R&D efforts to achieve excellence on par with global perspective.

The number of fellows will be limited to 10% of the total membership in the society.

As per the IUSBSE practice, the nominations will be considered every four years (starting 2011).

All members of SBAOI, including members from abroad can be nominated for this fellowship.

Proposed by Dr. K. Sreenivasan, Chairman, Awards Committee, SBAOI

General Body meeting (held at SCMS, Kochi on February 28, 2010) approved the procedure and the guidelines. However, it was indicated that the same should be put on the society’s web site and given one month time for all members for information and comments.

  • GB appointed a four member committee to nominate first time for the fellowship awards. During subsequent years, existing fellows will nominate new fellows and the nominations will be circulated among fellows for comments prior to committee’s consideration.
  • The committee consisted of the following 4 members
  1. Dr. K. Sreenivasan, SCTIMST, Thiruvananthapuram, India (Chairman)
  2. Prof. T.S. Sampathkumar, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, India (Member)
  3. Sri. D.S. Nagesh, SCTIMST, Thiruvananthapuram, India (Member)
  4. Dr. P.R. Harikrishna Varma, Secretary, SBAOI, SCTIMST, Thiruvananthapuram, India (Convener)